


Ninth Pass Pern: the drabbles

by astrokath



Series: Kath's drabbles100 collections [1]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Ableism, Character Death, Eating Disorders, F/M, Gen, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-06 02:51:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrokath/pseuds/astrokath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written for the drabbles100 community, a collection of drabble-snapshots from the 9th Pass.</p><p>Chapter 1: Kylara and T'bor.<br/>Chapter 2: Lessa, F'lar and supporting characters<br/>Chapter 3: N'ton<br/>Chapter 4: Manora, Felena & Mirrim<br/>Chapter 5: F'nor and Brekke<br/>Chapter 6: Twists & Turns - C'gan, Jora, Beterli, K'van and F'lessan</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kylara & T'bor

Parents

T'bor turned the bracelet over in his hands, wondering how much longer he'd be sat there waiting. He'd fed Orth, bathed and oiled him, repaired his flying straps, requisitioned some new wherhide trousers, and even arranged an impromptu drill with his wing. And still Kylara laboured, and he waited.

Eventually, he fell asleep where he sat.

Felena woke him shortly after dawn. Body aching, he asked if there was any news.

"News? Why, yes! You've a fine, healthy son, T'bor."

He sprang to his feet, kissed her, and ran stiffly towards the inner caverns.

_Hear that, Orth? I'm a father!_

_ _Children_ _

As the babe suckles, she wonders why she stayed, and if it really made any difference.

Larad would've wed her off by now anyway, condeming her to a life raising brats in return for whatever trinkets her husband deigned to give her. But the Weyr was different, they'd said. No need to breed your way into an early grave here!

No, not if you were _happy_ turning your hand to drudgery. And the alternative?

Kylara glares at the bracelet lying on the shelf, a gift from T'bor. Her son's father. Probably.

Hold, Hall or Weyr, men were all the same.

Beginnings

Kylara smiled, her heart filled with wonder. The sun cast blinding reflections off the gently breaking waves, and the sweet smell of redfruit blossom filled the air. This idyllic place was to be their home for the foreseeable future. No fear of thread, and no need to be second best to anyone - everything here would be hers to make the most of, and by Faranth, she'd do exactly that.

But where would she sleep, tonight, her and Prideth? Surely they wouldn't have to stay out here, in the sweltering southern heat, being eaten alive by pestilential bugs?

Kylara frowned.

Middles

"Fourteen bronzes deary, your Prideth did _so_ well..."

Really, Ranelly did carry on. Kylara reached out for the fruitjuice - fermented, this time - and poured herself a welcome glass. With just Orth and that weyrling scrap Lioth for company, was it any wonder Prideth had clutched so many?

But they did _her_ no good at all. Boys, all boys, except F'nor the bore... and T'bor. T'bor. After Prideth's flight, the fool had thought she'd be content as his alone, in spite of his newly obvious deficiencies. As if mere memories of dragonlust would be enough!

Oh, how she hated this place.

Ends

Standing on the windswept beach beside Prideth, Kylara refused to look back. 

The call had finally come, and they were returning to the _now_ , back home to Benden from this appalling exile. She'd spent all morning here on the sand, watching the waves with her dragon, while all the perishables of the Weyr were packed safely away for transport. The salt in the air would no doubt ruin her hair for at least a sevenday, but at least she wouldn't return to the north drenched in southern sweat.

If she never saw this place again, it would be too soon.

Thanksgiving

"There's something you're not telling me."

"Not my place," F'nor said, shaking his head. "Drink up your Klah, T'bor; F'lar wants us."

The bronzerider eyed him suspiciously as they left the lower caverns. Thread was falling tomorrow, and the seventy-odd exhausted riders just returned from the south were hardly the reinforcements F'lar so desperately needed. And F'nor was smiling!

Halfway across the bowl, T'bor caught sight of the Weyr's rim and pulled F'nor to a halt. "Those aren't Benden bronzes!"

"No, they're Lessa's reinforcements."

"Reinforcements?" Confused, elated, T'bor stared in wonder. Thank Faranth, maybe they'd survive the Pass after all!


	2. Lessa and F'lar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...with bonus POVs from Mardra, Lytol and R'gul

Agony

Enaid couldn't bear to turn around... She'd already seen the young dragons kill. And the screams!  One lad kept crying out about how  _ hungry _ his dragon was.

Oh no, she wasn't going to watch  _ that _ .

The incessant humming peaked, and Enaid's safety shattered. A wet gold shape staggered out of the egg's wreckage, wings flapping.  It sprang forward, violently grappling with Enaid's neighbour, until the girl dropped lifeless to the sand with a dull thud.

The dragon's head lifted, desperate red gaze meeting Enaid's eyes.

Paralysed with fear, Enaid whimpered as the dragon leapt once more, claws outstretched.

Agony.

 

Storm

Impression had been but a momentary pause in the whirlwind of the day's events, Lessa realised. 

Feeding her hungry queen was little different to feeding Ruath's old wher, but the bonding of mind to mind had left her off-balance.  While Ramoth slept in the weyr that was apparently theirs, she was given no chance to adjust, and instead dragged off to meet and greet and eat once more.  A cacophony of unfamiliarity filled the cavern, threatening to overwhelm her... 

No, that wouldn't do at all.

She was Ruathan, of the Blood!

She was the calm in eye of the storm.

 

Drink   
  
She'd not been a candidate of his choosing, but he'd welcomed her, taught her all she needed...  And what did the infuriating creature do?  Throw herself at F'lar, and all R'gul's carefully managed plans into disarray.  _ F'lar  _ certainly couldn't manage the Lords Holder, not after killing one of them, even if it  _ was  _ Fax!  The man was untried, perversely insistent that Thread would return, yes, utterly lacking in credibility.  Oh, he'd have his work cut out for him steering the Weyr through this calamity, until Hath could set things right again....

R'gul sighed in desperation, and poured himself another drink.

 

Solstice

Glaring from finger-rock to eye-rock in turn, R'gul waited impatiently for F'lar to say something that, quite frankly, didn't matter.  He wasn't blind!  Yes, the sun had risen just where it did every solstice.  And yes, this year the brightening red star was gleaming through the eye-rock, not somewhere else entirely.  But Thread was over, finished with hundreds of turns before. 

F'lar was a fool. Did he think that while the heavens still spun, Thread would still fall? That the Red Star would have to leave its eternal course before they'd be free of its menace?  

No, Thread was gone.

 

Moon __

_Between_ felt like an eternity, or an eyeblink. It was hard to believe that twenty-five turns had passed yet again, but you couldn't deny the evidence of your own eyes. The Weyr's decay had deepened, and the white disk of Belior hung perfectly above the horizon, as expected. Beside it, the Red Star loomed brighter than ever. With each jump, it grew larger, stranger... With each jump, the weyrfolk travelled further and further from home.

The only constant was the moon, even in its changing phases... In these strange new times, its cold light was almost friendly. A reminder of home.

 

Prophecy

The Masterharper turned to Fort's Lord Holder and gestured at the vacant Weyr in front of them. "It is indeed a most perturbing sight, and I'm thankful you brought me here so swiftly."

He made a pretense of watching the holders deseperately scour the Weyr for clues, but in his mind's eye, he was seeing a very different sight. Fort Weyr assembled in its glorious entirety, and the solemn face of the young woman who'd caused this absence to be. Gone away, gone ahead...

He hoped they'd make it, that his song would be prophecy enough to save Pern's future.

 

Missing

On the surface, very little had changed. Rukbat still shone, Thread still fell, babes were born and old uncles still bored anyone in earshot with their tales of the past. Or future, depending on your perspective.

It was the little things that were missing, Mardra decided.

The stallholders at the Gathers didn't know her by sight, and had no idea of her preferences. Dance styles were different, with a faster beat... hemlines lower, the ale weaker. The old nuances of etiquette had been almost totally lost; Mardra couldn't tell who thought who was ruder.

It was all really very discomforting.

 

She

Staring into those amber eyes, Lessa supresses a surge of annoyance.   This man's confidence in her has never wavered, not once. An extension of his own arrogance, or the deepest compliment? 

Both, she decides. And how can she fail to respond to that?   

Reluctantly, she realises she's fallen in love. and she hates him for that, too.  After a lifetime of hiding and mistrust, struggling to keep control of her life, love's far too disarming for her liking.  

Oh, she loves him... but she doesn't have to make things easy for him.

He'll find out when  _ she's _ ready, not before.

 

Enemies

It was Ruatha's first gather of the year, and Lord Warder Lytol was desperately looking for an escape.  _ Both _ the Ruathan-born Weyrwomen were here, standing toe to toe and eyeing each other like mortal enemies. Tradition dictated he had to open the dancing with one of them... - but which took precedence? Probably Mardra; Fort was the eldest Weyr and Ruatha looked to it for protection... but Lessa was Lessa, and had been Ruatha's heir, while Mardra was born of a younger son.

On the dais, Robinton caught his eye, and subtly changed the tune. 

A group dance. Thank Faranth!

 

Birthday

It's Felessan's birthingday, and the small boy is shrieking with laughter as he plays with his friends in the mud. F'lar hears, but doesn't see; he's watching Lessa instead, the hard control in her eyes as she smiles.

When Fax took her parents, her siblings, everyone she knew and loved... then, she knew exactly what to do. Brought Ruatha to its knees, and Fax to his ruin. But this? Utterly powerless, he knows she aches for them terribly, the siblings that Felessan will never know.

It's an old grief now, but she still doesn't know what to do with it.

 

Spirit

"Someone  _ must  _ have seen her!", Lessa fumed. "I thought we'd put a stop to people tampering with Ramoth's clutches, but..."

F'lar laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Lessa. Lessa, calm down. She never went near the eggs, didn't even set foot on the sands until Path Impressed her."

"Yes, but..."

"And what if she hadn't? Path wasn't interested in anyone else there. You've read the records; Path would've died."

"But a girl, on a fighting green! Oh, you  _ know _ what stuffy old R'mart will have to say."

F'lar chuckled. "True. But you can't deny the girl's got fighting spirit!"

 

  
Years

The years lie heavily on his face, written in lines on jaw and brow, and around those laughing amber eyes, now closed in final sleep.  His hair is peppered by dark strands, and still not as white as her own.  Unfair, that, she'd once thought, but not now.  

Now, if she could slow time's passage for him, even by a single day, or hour, she would.

They've travelled centuries in their lives, and will be remembered even longer.  But not his smile, his voice, the gentle joys of these last few years.

Inexorably, the dragons' keen dies away into silence.


	3. N'ton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FWIW, in the case of the last drabble I think N'ton would have chosen differently in an Interval. In a Pass, every dragon is needed to fight Thread, and hard decisions need to be made, however unfair. I don't know whether he got that call wrong or right.

Weeks 

The creamy shell beneath Naton's hands feels nothing at all like softest leather. The Weyrlingmaster says it used to, just a few weeks ago. But now it's hard, and only slightly cooler than the pale sands.

He glances sideways to reassure himself that the queen hasn't changed her mind about letting the candidates this close. But Ramoth only has eyes for the gold egg, and the blonde beauty beside it. She holds a nursing infant one-handed, while the other lovingly caresses the egg.

Four other lads wait beside Naton's egg. Stroking it one last time, Naton imagines himself alone.

 

Days

N'ton inspects his corner of the Weyrling barracks with critical bemusement.

It's not how he remembered it, back when Lioth was still small enough to fit inside.

Three days ago.

Four years ago.

He runs a finger across the shelf above his old bed, looking for dust that simply isn't there.  Just a couple of pretty rocks from home, one weighing down a letter from his mother, and a thick jumper he hadn't needed in the South.  It wouldn't fit him now, anyway.

Laughing, he realises that he needs new clothes just as much as Lioth needs a new weyr.

 

Grey

N'ton suppressed a shudder, and drew his face back from the eyepiece.  The Weyr was calm and safe, if rather cold at this late hour. The sky was black with night, not darkened by the grey banks of encroaching Threadfall.

Nothing like the Red Star, a whole world engulfed in the exact same sickly shades.  N'ton couldn't help seeing patterns in the shifting features, people and creatures, all slowly disassembled by the roiling clouds.  Except backwards-pointing Nerat, an unchanging mirror image of the consequence of failure.

How could they fight that, or ever rid this world of Thread for good?

  
Choices

N'ton shook his head firmly. "Send the lad home. Now."

Margatta rolled her eyes at the back of the departing Searchrider. "I can't believe one of our own riders could be so _stupid_! A blind lad as a candidate? Has _between_ addled his mind?"

"Something has," N'ton said, grimacing. "Thank Faranth we won't need him Searching again soon. Bad enough grounding blinded riders, but to let the lad _stand_? With Griventh picking him out, I don't doubt he'd Impress either."

"The dragons always choose..."

"Sometimes, they choose badly. That lad... it's our job to protect them from choices like that."


	4. In and out of the Lower Caverns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's more to Weyr life than dragonriders

"Circle"

"Carry on... I'll not be long." Leaving the loose circle of children to their counting song, C'gan walked over to the woman standing in the doorway. "Who was it this time, Manora?"

"D'fay."

"He's...  _ was _ ... younger than you are." Jora's age. Dead too soon, both of them. Though perhaps  _ not _ too soon in Jora's case, C'gan thought uncharitably.

Manora looked away, distant. "Two less mouths to feed. With eggs on the Sands..."

New lives to replace the new deaths, until they died in their turn, an endless circle. Endless... but even so, C'gan feared it was diminishing."Not enough, though."

 

Too much

Manora passed the glowbasket to the drudge, and climbed onto the stepladder. There was a very small chance that tucked away in the darkness of the top shelf she'd find something edible that  _ wasn't _ salted fish. In the past month, they'd eaten fish stew, fish pie, baked fish, steamed fish, fish pate and every other fish-based recipe in the records. They'd even concocted a few new ones. 

But there was no use denying it - they had too much fish, and not enough of anything else. The Weyr wouldn't stand for this much longer.

It was time to speak to Lessa.

 

Purple

Lifting a hand to screen her eyes from the sun, Felena watched the wing of dragons vanish, heading home.

Well. Time to start work. Felena picked up a pair of reed baskets, gestured for her helpers to do likewise, and trudged up the beach towards the waiting jungle. In this part of the Nerat peninsula, you could find just about every plant you needed, and all the biting insects too. But hopefully they'd find everything near the coast, where the sea breezes kept both the humidity and bugs at bay.

Felena squinted at the sight of something purple.

Aha! Redwort

Lost

Felena looks around the vacated weyr, and sighs. It looks... lived in. An unmade bed, bits and pieces scattered across a shelf, mending in a reed basket beneath the table and a cold mug of klah slowly growing mould beside the dragon's couch.

Some things will be easier to deal with than others. His wingmates will have chosen their mementos already. Clothes can be laundered, then re-used is some fashion, as can all the usual accoutrements of a rider - leather, knives, brushes and the like.

But the rest - the sum of this rider's life - inevitably, their meaning will be lost.

 

Hours

Mirrim sits amongst the huddle of lower caverns women, alone. 

Neatly stacked bandages stand beside jars of numbweed and a basin of warm water on a table; beneath it are the skins of fellis-laden wine. Everything is in order. 

Caring for the wounded is easy for her; she can lose herself in her task. Waiting is the worst part of these hours. 

The other women sit patiently in the chill cold of the weyrbowl, waiting for the injured dragons to emerge. But every time broad, bronze wings darken the sky above, Mirrim's heart trembles. 

Let it not be Monarth!


	5. F'nor & Brekke

Brown

The first hatchling was a bronze, a good sign.

Unaware of the spectator's sighs, the young boy watched breathlessly as the dragon broke free of his shell, glanced around, then stumbled forwards with a hungry cry.

Towards the boy, and his brother.

Stepping aside was easy- this was his brother's dragon, wasn't it?

He watched as Impression was made. Saw his father come bounding across the sands, lead his brother and his brother's dragon away.

Alone, he waited, until just one dragon remained. A brown, still searching... for him?

Oh, yes! 

Wonderstruck, he met his dragon. __

_My name is Canth!_

Red

Brekke took one look at the new arrival, and sighed. Not another one! She grabbed an empty jar from the shelf, and filled it to the brim with the lotion she'd spent all afternoon concocting. Mostly numbweed, and some other ingredients that'd sap heat from the skin.

"N'serren isn't it? Too much sun?"

The rider nodded, dejected, and Brekke found herself torn between pity and amusement. Despite the hours he must have spent searching for firelizard clutches, he obviously hadn't found anything. Except, perhaps, a lot more sunshine than he was used to.

The poor man was very, very red.  


Birth

So far from the Weyr, it should have been just another dream. But as Canth awoke, the hunger of tiny minds grew even stronger.

A little confused, he unlidded an eye, and scanned the beach. No sign of other dragons, but a flickering consciousness was undeniably close. Movement caught his eye at last, bright gold on gleaming white sands.

What was it?

Canth blinked, and reached for F'nor. There were memories in the man's mind, myths that Canth could only half remember. The brown dragon cautiously woke his rider as the creature hopped a little closer. __

_F'nor, do not move..._

Death

It was a sad sight, one made all the more so because Canth instinctively knew that so many of the hatchlings should not have died. Their hunger was so loud, but they had no Weyr to provide food for them. Where were their sire and dam? Dead, or too fearful of Canth's own presence to remain close to the clutch while it hatched? Would they have protected them from the Wherries? Or fed the hatchlings, sparing them from eating each other?

Canth thought of F'nor, still enraptured with his tiny queen, and buried his insights deeply enough to forget them.

White

The white-clad candidates marched onto the hot sands.

Lytol watched them assemble, and stifled his emotions. The worst was still to come. Not from the lads, but from the gaunt woman in the shadows, blindly stumbling across the pale sands towards the queen egg.

Oh, this shouldn't be happening. F'nor and Manora _cared_ , but they didn't _understand_. Nothing could replace Larth, or Wirenth, and it'd cripple a hatchling to try. And yet... if he _could_ have Larth again?

The new queen hatched. Impressed.

To Talina, not Brekke.

Utterly emptied, Lytol sank back into his seat.

"It would be wrong..."

Rebirth

She ate, without appetite. Listened, without caring. Lived... no, not that.

The painfully hot sands were a welcome distraction from her pain, perhaps enough to mask her grief from the hatchlings. It seemed it was, for the young queen was moving inexorably towards her, wanting her, ignorant of her emptiness and all too prepared to follow Wirenth and lose her self in the _between_ of Brekke's soul.

Could she forget Wirenth, find herself anew in the fragments? What a terrible possibility! She wouldn't choose it, couldn't, but could she _stop_ it?

And then Berd was there, guiding her safely home.

Paralysis

Brekke had never seen Lessa so desperate. F'lar _would_ find a way to go, unless... someone went in his stead. And she knew, Faranth, how she knew, Pern couldn't lose him! 

Paralysed, she watched all the pieces fall inevitably into place. Meron, the firelizards, F'nor's self-sacrifcing courage, and above it all, Lessa's desperate need. She could feel the woman's turmoil through Ramoth, her grief and self-hatred as she _leaned_ on F'nor...

Her eyes held Brekke's own, all fire and determination. And her soul cried out for forgiveness.

"I understand, Lessa," Brekke said.

Allowing the only possible choice to be made.


	6. Twists and turns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> C'gan, Jora, Beterli, K'van and F'lessan

"Blue"  
  
There was nothing like training Weyrlings to strengthen old arms. Just the one sack left now, and C'gan had a feeling that Tagath wouldn't want him to throw _this_ one to someone else.  
  
 _We can fight! They_ need _us!_  
  
He chuckled, and threw a hefty rock towards Tagath's gaping maw. A few more, and he'd build up a good flame.  
  
The blue slowly wheeled back towards the leading edge, steady wingstrokes lifting them upwards towards the fighting wings, chaos, and the brutal realities of age. Thread fell too fast for Tagath's flame, or C'gan's reactions.  
  
Too late, they jumped _between_.

 

"Food"  
  
Jora sat in her weyr, alone, bored out of her mind. She could start on another piece of tapestry, she supposed, but that meant descending the steep steps out of her weyr, and there was no-one to walk with her. She could call someone up, but why bother? To be sneered at unsympathetically, or to hear some snide comment about her waistline?  
  
No, she'd stay put today. And at least she had her darling Nemorth with her. Nemorth, who would never leave her side, or insist on terrifying her. Jora smiled at her queen, and reached for another sweet pastry.

 

"Broken"  
  
There were too many candidates in Benden Weyr. Soon, the dragons would break shell to choose their lifemates. Eight times, he'd seen it. He was so afraid that this time would be no different. He was _better_ than all these babes... wasn't he?  
  
Beterli watched in sickened fascination as the boy fell slowly backwards over the barrow, still clinging on to his shovel. His head struck its rim, then the whole thing toppled, blackrock and metal clattering noisily onto the ground. _Almost_ loud enough to mask the sound of breaking bones, but not quite.  
  
It was the sound of dreams breaking.

 

"Light"   
  
K'van stands proudly, free of his crutches at last.  He's still the smallest in the class and has a lot of catching up to do, but he's determined to do just as well as the others in today's drill.  
  
The Weyrlingmaster beckons him forward, and gestures for another lad to pick up the waiting sack of firestone. It's barely enough for a green, but it looks pretty big from K'van's perspective, and even bigger and heavier as it hurtles through the air towards him.  
  
A sack that size ought to feel light, easy... but he wonders if it ever will.

 

"New Year"   
  
Benden’s annual Turnover festivities were in full swing, but for some reason F’lessan simply wasn’t enjoying himself. Well… if he  _ thought _ about it, there were several reasons— all of them female. The ones he  _ wanted _ to dance with were treating him like a tunnelsnake, while the ones he  _ didn’t _ kept appearing at the most inopportune moments. Remembering an old argument, he reached out to his dragon.  
_  
Golanth, tell me Mirrim wasn’t right? Please? _   
  
_ About your reputation? _   
  
_ What else? _   
  
Dryly, Golanth reminded him that Turnover was the traditional time for turning over new leaves, and that perhaps he should consider it... 


End file.
